


Backflip

by LexiTheDoubleedge



Series: Melody of Subsumption [4]
Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow, Slut Life (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Emotional Manipulation, Gaslighting, Multi, Psychological Drama, Rule 63, Weird Biology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-12 18:43:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18452402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LexiTheDoubleedge/pseuds/LexiTheDoubleedge
Summary: But why, Aria asked herself, would anyone want to master Emma Barnes?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Redeeming the Bullies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18251879) by [WestOrEast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WestOrEast/pseuds/WestOrEast). 



> You'd think by now I'd have learned something about tempting fate.
> 
> While the Aria of this story has all the powers displayed in the 'long way' of "Let's Break A Game", that was a different Aria, or it's not canon, or something like that.

Entering a new world was always a strange experience.

I never knew where I was going to end up, or what I was going to be doing. But it never seemed to take me long before I found the right place to go. I was always set down in a place where my instincts would lead me straight to it.

Precogs. Or, as Elle would sometimes put it, "-Fucking- Precogs". She'd never really gotten over how they'd set us up, no matter how good the results were.

Oh, there were limits. My Nature couldn't be precogged, so if I ran into a fight or something before I'd found my objective, things could get complicated. That didn't happen very often though. Analysis did think I only had a couple years before I'd turn into a full blank spot, but I'd probably retire before then. I was already coming up on the lower bound for recommended time in Intervention anyway.

I'd gotten a drink from a nearby shop and sat down to people-watch a bit. Wasn't really many people out to watch right now, actually, but I was kind of tired from my last world and felt like taking a break.

There was a redheaded teenager walking past who caught my eye. Not bad looking, exactly, but not really my type. Something seemed familiar about her though. Like someone I'd met before, but not quite. Maybe a sibling? And her body shape felt just a bit off for some reason.

Our eyes met.

_Mastered._

I resisted the urge to do something about that right then and there. I was supposed to be a scalpel, not a bludgeon. I needed to know more before I acted.

She had already looked away. If I approached her now, it might get attention I didn't want. And I needed to approach her. Couldn't latch onto her with a common goal - whoever mastered her had covered the obvious approaches. Couldn't use pheromones to make her approach me, with us out in the open I'd be way too obvious hanging around long enough to tune them. I needed space, needed to come from a different direction.

This was a commercial area, and a lot of the shops had security cameras. I could work with that.

I threw my cup in a nearby trash can, and turned into an alleyway.

No muggers. Lucky them. No cameras, no observers. But there was power.

I turned into electricity and joined it.

I was 'blind' in a sense when I went inside the wires - I could see the paths I could follow, get a sense for devices and such, but I couldn't see much else. Certainly not people. But if I found a camera I could cheat. I could watch through it.

And that's how I followed my mystery girl down the street, jumping from camera to camera, looking for just the right spot. Dense urban areas gave this power a lot of flexibility, but finding a safe place to come -out- could be a challenge. And I needed enough room to work with if I wanted to keep this quiet.

One of the cameras I passed through was pointing at an electronics store, and I got my first clue from a TV sitting in the window. The angle wasn't great, and of course I had no sound, but I could get a few words. It was enough.

_Empire Eighty-Eight_  
_PRT_  
_Armsmaster_

Well then. Looked like I'd found a counterpart world to one of the ones I'd visited before, then. I knew it couldn't be the -same- world, so I couldn't rely on all my information to be good. But it might give me some ideas on where to start looking.

But why would someone have mastered Emma Barnes? I'd learned some things about her from Taylor, and unless this world was very different, she just wasn't that important to anyone outside her own circle.

There was another alley up ahead. It was a calculated risk. I'd been able to check a few different approaches to it, and it was probably unobserved and empty. Definitely no electronic monitoring. And it would let me approach Emma from the front. It wasn't perfect, but if I waited too long she might leave the area that I could follow her in like this.

I ejected into the alley, immediately resumed my human form, and started producing Transform inside my veins. If someone saw me I'd just have to deal with that, I was short on time.

But I got lucky. There wasn't anyone there to see me appear, or the drug start to take effect. My hair shortened, changing from my usual brown to a strawberry blonde. My breasts grew a bit, enough to strain just a bit against my blouse after I took my jacket off. The planes of my face changed, eyes a little narrower, thighs and butt shrank a bit. Mostly not big changes, but enough to make me look like a totally different person.

Oh, and I was now male. Not that you'd guess from looking at the rest of me.

I walked out of the alley, looking around like I was a bit lost. (Honestly, I was, which only helped the act.) Saw someone who looked safe enough to approach (who just happened to be my target). "Excuse me, could you tell me how to get to the bus station? I think I'm lost."

I only half-heard her response as she turned, and I caught her eyes again. But this time, she was looking right at me. Long enough for me to trigger Delve.

I couldn't read minds... exactly. Honestly, I was just as happy about that. But exposure to the Veldian mind-control system had given me the ability to read things from shells, or from potential shells. And then, with enough preparation, go a step further... but right now I just needed information.

_ imagEs? _

_links_

_conceptsassociatiOnsconnectionsWordsCELLSlinkspatternsIDEasevents_

_entanglEMEntsbarrierscontaMinantsimagesroutesFEELINGSlinks_

_MESSagEStHOUGHtSLINKSabSTRACTIONsSTRUCTURESeCHOEs_

_ REFLECTIONREFLECTIONREFLECTIONREFLECTION _

"Thank you, miss," I replied demurely, trying to keep the shock off my face as I turned and walked in the direction the other girl had pointed.

I'd heard that everyone had a twin in the world. But shouldn't my twin look like I had before Taylor helped me become Emma?

Blink.

I was Emma, right? I'm pretty sure I'm Emma.

I like being Emma. I didn't want to go back to being Emmet.

Blink.

Holy fuck I hated Delving. The margin where I was left convinced that I was the target was just the second worst thing ever. And it never got any easier.

But I got the information I needed. I was sure this was what I was here to do. Even though I didn't know why Emmet (Emma?) Barnes mattered.

Well, I knew why she mattered to someone. Twice over, now. But it was never about one person.

Maybe I'd never learn why. But I'd do what I had to do.

Once I found someplace to go have a good cry. Taylor... how could you?


	2. Chapter 2

I was starting to feel like a bit of a stalker.

Well, maybe that should be "a lot of a stalker". Most stalkers latched onto one person at a time, and I was dividing my focus between two. I was pretty sure that meant I qualified for overtime.

Really, all I needed from Emma was to be able to catch her alone on a regular basis, so that part was pretty easy.

Taylor, though... I needed to get her attention. I needed to learn her routine, and insert myself subtly into it. Or, at least, the public parts of it. Night Life shouldn't meet Allison, except as a last resort.

After all, that could involve meeting Tattletale. And that could go very wrong very quickly.

But Taylor had a life outside of the Undersiders, outside of Emma. And I had a million disposable appearances to watch her in.

Alongside the cameras, of course. Cameras were better when I could manage it, of course, but they couldn't go everywhere I needed. A few times I got surprised by thugs coming out of the wires, but as an obvious 'cape' they were wary of me, and a dose of Recursion was all it took to ensure they never told anyone about me.

And then it was time for Taylor to get to know Allison.

From a distance.

At first, anyway.

Allison was new to the area, and frankly wasn't that impressed by it. But she was doing what she had to in order to get by, while making sure everyone around her knew how lucky they were to get that much.

She had her own hobbies and interests to keep her busy, got a job, lived her life.

Shopped at some of the same stores that Taylor shopped at.

Went to the same movie theater Taylor went to. When she deigned to consider a movie worth her time, of course.

Exercised at a gym that Taylor walked past sometimes. The front of the building had full glass windows, for people who liked to see the sun when they worked out. Allison didn't know who Taylor was, didn't care that Taylor saw her on the treadmill every now and then.

But Taylor cared.

Because Allison looked startlingly similar to Emma Barnes.

She looked like 'my' Emma, that is. No one would confuse her for the Emma from this world, if for no other reason than that I (Allison) had -much- bigger boobs. And really, if you looked at us next to each other, or compared pictures, you'd see that we weren't -that- much alike.

But Taylor couldn't see Allison without thinking of Emma. Of Emmet. Allison was a nightmarish fusion of the appearance she desired and the attitude that she despised, and it was causing her noticeable distress. Not that Allison cared.

Until one day when Taylor wasn't moving quickly enough at the grocery store for Allison's taste, and Allison shoved her out of the way.

And Taylor gave into temptation.

She used the moment of contact to put some cells inside Allison's body.

Inside my body.

She never knew when my power turned them from Taylor-cells into Aria-cells. They still felt exactly the same to her, still responded to her control just as readily. And she'd only tormented Allison with them a bit, so it wasn't a big deal.

Maybe that would have changed in time, but Allison disappeared shortly thereafter. Maybe she left Brockton Bay, maybe she got caught up in a gang shooting or a robbery gone bad, maybe she just found a new place in a different part of town. Who knew? All Taylor knew was that the cells in that strangely familiar, obnoxiously bitchy girl whose name she'd never learned weren't there anymore, either dead or out of her range.

The real answer, as it happened, was neither. I could have had them self-destruct, but I'd need all the Aria-cells I could get later. I couldn't build my own, after all. They wouldn't last forever (and I'd need to be careful of that), and I couldn't do half the things with them that Taylor could make them do. But I could do enough, if I had enough of them. I wouldn't waste the head start.

More importantly, I could now start killing the Taylor-cells in Emma's body.

I took it slow at first. I'd sneak into Emma's room at night (power lines, don't you know), give her a shot of Recursion. Then I'd take some of the counteragent I could now manufacture and pour it in her mouth. Carefully. Didn't want her to choke.

In theory I could have given it to her mouth-to-mouth, but that was just a little too freaky. I was going to cross enough lines here, I didn't have to cross that one, so I wasn't going to.

The first few times was a weakened version. It only killed about a quarter of the Taylor-cells. But then I stepped it up. And up. After a couple months, Taylor simply couldn't expect the cells to last longer than a day or two.

This did not actually represent a hardship for her. Taylor could make far more, far faster than what she used with Emma. But she didn't know why they kept dying. It worried her. And she didn't want to stop playing with Emma. So she kept putting more cells in Emma.

Sometimes she experimented with them, trying to figure out a way to stop them from dying. It never worked, but she tried.

It was time for the next phase.

I snuck into Emma's bedroom one last time... and this time I didn't leave alone.

Emma Barnes... you're kind of a shitty person, you know that?

At least, my Emma was pretty shitty. I'm pretty sure you are too.

I couldn't be entirely sure though. I'd never really met Emmet or Emma.

I wasn't sure Emma had met Emma either. Maybe she was inside Emmet all along. But if Taylor had wanted to bring Emma out, she'd done a piss-poor job of it in my opinion. Whoever was inside this body, they didn't deserve what Taylor had done to them.

Emma didn't deserve what I was going to do to her either. Maybe she'd get another chance in the future, if she were real. If I had a chance, I could let her become a truer expression of herself. But that was the future.

I've said before that Delving is the second worst thing. People give me funny looks when I put it that way.

Until I told them what the worst thing was. Then they got it.

Before I could give this one back their life... first I had to steal it.

_ reflEction? _

_memories_

_thoughtspromisesfeelings_

_formsstructurestraNSFORMations_

_LIGhTSOUNDDIStANCETIMEFUNCTiON_

_ RESPONSERESPONSERESPONSERESPONSE _

_ SUBMERGENCE _


	3. Chapter 3

My name is Emma Barnes.

My name is Aria.

I love Taylor.

I love -my- Taylor. No matter what happened, I clung to that. This wasn't my Taylor.

The perfect kidnapping...

I love the things she does to me. Hurting me, fucking me, humiliating me, all at once, again and again.

I couldn't feel anything -this- Taylor did from inside my Labyrinth. But I saw too much.

... is the one where no one knows the victim is missing.

But I knew she was worried.

But I knew I was getting to her.

The marks she'd put on me kept disappearing. Usually at night, but sometimes other times, times she didn't expect them to.

Taylor kept giving me more cells, and I kept making them mine.

It was my body, but Emma's mind was running it. That was the power of 'Submerge'.

I knew she wanted to show the others the kind of love she'd shown me, but she'd decided not to try until she was sure what was wrong with me.

I was keeping her distracted.

And I loved her. I couldn't spend this long being someone without coming to love them.  
Was Emma a transwoman like I'd thought? Was Emmet the boy the real person?  
Or had Taylor reached something resembling the truth despite herself?

I was worried about myself too. Sometimes, parts of my body felt... wrong.

I had enough Aria cells to replace parts of my body with them.  
I couldn't do everything with them that Taylor could do with her own body.  
But I could move them around.

Sometimes it felt like my ass was shrinking.

It was.

Or my hips.

They were.

Whoever you are, I'll give you the choice.  
I'll let you become your heart's desire.

But that didn't make sense, right? I'd feel them, and they'd be back to normal.

I'd change parts of my body one way when Taylor wasn't looking.  
When I knew she'd seen them, I'd change them back.

Because I love you.

But then the changes started staying.

Because I wanted them to.

It was a lot of work, being Emma while sneaking away to take care of the real Emma. But I managed.

Taylor gave me more hormones.

And I learned how to make them... and how to reverse them.

Sometimes they worked, and sometimes they didn't.

Every time I learned to make more hormone counters, I'd apply them to the real Emma. Echoes of the changes to her real body were starting to influence her responses in mine.  
And Emma was looking more like Emmet every day.

It felt like my whole body was in flux.

I was getting closer.

I'm sorry.

What was happening to me?

Just one more.

Just hold on a little longer.

Taylor, what should I do?

Got it!

I can't wait any longer!

I blinked.

My name is Aria.

Cancelling Submerge.

I'm Aria!

I was with Taylor. This Taylor. Not my Taylor. But the secrets didn't matter anymore. I didn't need to trick Taylor into giving me anything else.

I turned into electricity. According to my desires, the collar, the chastity cage, the heels, all the other accessories were left behind.

I turned back to human and hit the Transform. Electricity would be faster, but it felt wrong. Taylor was following me, but I didn't care. I didn't need much of a head start, and I was optimizing my body for running speed.

And was in a female body again. It had been a while.

I reached the place where I'd hidden Emmet. I didn't have time. I kissed him, delivering the last counteragent that way. What did he care, he was still unconscious. I'm sure Taylor would find the sight of Emma kissing Emmet arresting, but she hadn't caught up yet.

And then I woke him up. And finally, after wanting to for so long, looked him in the eyes, and activated Shell Game.

I'd keep my promise. I'd hear what Emmet/Emma wanted, and give it to them. Now that I could know that it was real.

_Leave._

What?

_Depart._

No.

_Leave this world._

I made a promise!

_Now now now_

You can't do this to me!

_Initializing layer transition. Selecting secondary drive mode._

NO!

_Layer transition active. Engaging drive._

I was surrounded by feathers.

***

Ugh. Just how long had I been asleep? I felt as stiff as a board.

And why was there a girl who looked like she could be my twin here?

Wait, hadn't I looked like that before?

And then she disappeared in a cloud of feathers. That explained it, I was having a dream. Oh, sure, a cape could have done that, if it wasn't completely stupid and nonsensical.

Where the hell was I anyway? And what was all that stuff with Taylor about?

Taylor couldn't actually be a cape, could she?

And then Taylor burst into the room. Her eyes went wide, and I could see parts of her body changing shape erratically. She was losing control.

I wasn't dreaming.

\---

Taylor was my best friend. No, we were closer than that. She was my little sister. And I was her little brother.

We'd always get the funniest looks when we told people that. Just one more joke we shared.

And then the ABB came.

And Scott.

And...

And...

And...

\---

I'd destroyed her.

And created her.

She'd destroyed me.

And created me.

And now it was undone.

And here we were to do it again.

Would there be anything left of us by the end?

I... Taylor... Please!

[DESTINATION]


	4. Epilogue

I was alone in the Wards area. Not doing anything in particular, just looking around and remembering.

Only a couple more months, and I'd be moving to the Protectorate.

It didn't mean I wouldn't visit. That we wouldn't be working together, or sleeping together.

But it would be different.

I sighed.

"Taylor? Are you okay?"

It was Missy. I hadn't heard her come in.

"Yeah. Just feeling a bit melancholy, I guess."

She came over and patted me on the shoulder. It wasn't much of a reach for her anymore, since she finally hit her growth spurt last year. (And that wasn't the only way in which she'd 'blossomed'...)

I knew how much she was looking forward to being the Wards leader. It was the final affirmation that she'd thrown off the image of being 'the kid' that had haunted her for so long. It made me feel bad about having her comfort me like this.

But it still made me feel a bit better having her around.

"Have you seen the patrol schedule for tomorrow?" she asked.

"No," I replied. "Something going on?"

"Armsmaster put in a lock for Astoria for... some tinker thing, I didn't get the details. So we're going to have to- what the hell?"

The open space in the center of the room was filling with feathers.

And then they disappeared. But someone was left behind. Someone I knew.

"Aria!" I heard Missy call out, and saw her almost start running for the other girl, but then she recoiled.

I could see why. From the look on Aria's face... something terrible must have happened. She might not appreciate one of Missy's famous tackle-hugs right now.

And then I saw her start swaying, and rushed over to catch her before she fell down.

"Taylor..." she whimpered. "I'm sorry. I thought I could save them both, but I couldn't. They wouldn't let me. I'm sorryyy..."

I didn't understand, and I could see that Missy was just as clueless. But she'd moved to hold Aria from the other side. Maybe between the two of us we could get her to calm down, and we could figure out what was going on.

"Intervention... I can't do it anymore. You hear that? I'm retiring, you bastards!"

***

_Retirement notice acknowledged._  
_Resetting layer transition system._  
_Destinations unlocked based on your previous social links._  
_Know that you can always find safe refuge with us._

_I'm sorry._

Fuck you.

_It was necessary._

I believe you.

Fuck you anyway.


	5. But... the future continued to change

It'd been a few years, and I'd settled down. Just a normal girl now.

Ha, I actually said that with a straight face. I was a member of the Protectorate ENE, that made me pretty peculiar by this world's standards in multiple ways. Maybe not so much by home's standards.

No one would mention the four of us in the same breath as the Triumvirate, but we made a team to take seriously. Vista, with her incredible ability ability to reshape the battlefield. Filament, wide range intelligence gathering and offensive power that could make just about anyone regret asking "what can you do with something stupid like -bugs-?" Sparkler, doing a good impersonation of both the irresistable force and the immovable object. And Tattletale (I gave up trying to convince her to rebrand), not taking the field directly but whose insights were always invaluable.

Yeah, I'd revealed some more of what I could really do. Not the whole by any means, of course. I didn't really want to see what would happen if I showed how much of a Stranger I could really be. (I didn't want to live like that anymore.)

This world even provided a ready-made explanation for the kind of power boost I displayed. I'd 'second triggered'. Not that I'd triggered at all, but very few people needed to know that.

Compared to what I'd been doing before, that all felt normal. Refreshingly straightforward.

Not that there weren't still some oddities. This was home now, but I still had friends in other worlds that I visited. And I'd started getting therapy, from people who were cleared to know everything I'd done.

It'd taken a couple years, but I'd managed to fully separate my feelings for my Taylor from Emma's feelings for hers. 

His? Whatever, I'd never been able to figure that out. I'd been too close to the problem from the beginning.

I wondered what happened to them.

I'd wondered that before, during that time in the dead of night that makes people wonder if the things they'd done were really worth it.

But this time was different. This time I expected an answer.

_You never asked about any of the others before._

I trusted you before.

_If you didn't trust us now, you wouldn't be asking._

Don't be obtuse.

_They saved a whole lot of people._

I shuddered. Saving people was something I could believe in... but being able to 'save a whole lot of people' tended to come with a certain string attached in these worlds.

Maybe it was for the best that the decision to stick around had been taken out of my hands.

But that wasn't what I really wanted to know.

_Happiness is always an ongoing process for living beings._

I'm not sure that's a very satisfying answer.

_It's the one I'd give if someone asked the same thing about you._

...

Maybe that was enough.

I kissed Lisa on the forehead (eliciting nothing more than a soft murmer), rolled over, and went to sleep.


End file.
